The Rundown

Saturday 8-19 - D and K leave to visit their kids in Kentucky and Pennsylvania. Big Bear and I are in charge of keeping an eye on their place, watering flowers and checking on Miss Kitty. She is an indoor/outdoor kitty who is used to being outside during the day, but will be kept indoors for the two weeks they are gone. They live on a very wooded 2.5 acres so leaving enough food and water out for two weeks is not an option (all kinds of critters would be up there eating it and it would be gone in a day). Besides the food issue, she has a wound on her side (probably another animal) so we wanted her in the house for safety and to keep an eye on the wound. Miss Kitty is a very skittish cat, but a very loving and gentle cat. She was a stray that somebody threw away as a kitten and it took D 6 months of feeding her on the deck before she allowed D to get close enough to pet her or let her into the house.

Sunday 8-20 - We make our first visit to water, etc. and Big Bear promptly lets Miss Kitty escape out the back door. There's no getting her back so we finish the watering and head home.

Monday 8-21 - Big Bear feels bad about Miss Kitty and stops by their place on his way home from work. He sees her but she won't come near him.

Tuesday 8-22 - I go over in the late afternoon and in addition to doing the watering I take my dinner and just sit around for awhile hoping she'll show up. She'll usually come to me, but I was there nearly 2 hours and never saw her.

Wednesday 8-23 - D calls and I do not want to answer the phone and tell her we lost Miss Kitty. She calls again and I answer and face the music. Big Bear gets home from work and is really stressing about it. I tell him stressing about it isn't going to do any good and we'll wait until evening to try again since that's more likely to be when she's used to coming in. We go over and I have Big Bear stay in the house so he doesn't frighten her and I go outside with a handful of food to see if I can find her. Well, what do you know, as I exit out the garage there she is. She scurries off and looks at me from a distance. I bend down and dribble some food out of my hand while gently calling her. She comes over to me to get petted and I scoop her up and head into the house. She was much more interested in the attention than the food. All is well and I call D to tell her.

Thursday 8-24 & Friday 8-25 - The weather is cooler and Miss Kitty inside so no need to go over until Saturday. Friday morning I went to my TOPS meeting and Friday afternoon Big Bear and I joined our son & DIL for a cruise down the Willamette River on an old sternwheeler followed by dinner at our local pub & grill. A very enjoyable afternoon. I was taking pictures like mad when suddenly the camera quit. Dagnabbit, the battery was dead and I hadn't brought the spare. Oh well, from then on it was just enjoy the ride.

Saturday 8-26 - Went over to D's place and did the watering and checked on Miss Kitty. I couldn't coax her out from under the bed. She obviously does not like being cooped up in the house all by herself, but I could tell she's been eating so will assume she's O.K.